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Regular Massage May Make You Feel Relaxed, Reduce Muscle Soreness / Osteoarthritis Knee Pain as A Natural Painkillers Even Boosts Your Immune System

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Massage consists of gentle stroking, kneading or mild stretching of the muscles either while in a seated position (chair massage) or a full-body massage while lying on a table. Massage may be done through one's clothing or on exposed skin.In professional settings, massage involves the client being treated while lying on a massage table, sitting upright in a massage chair, or lying on a pad on the floor.

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Massage is the practice of applying structured or unstructured pressure, tension, motion, or vibration — manually or with mechanical aids — to the soft tissues of the body, including muscles, connective tissue, tendons, ligaments, joints and lymphatic vessels, to achieve a beneficial response.Massage can also be a part of lovemaking (see erotic massage), and often takes place in the context of sex work.

Massage is used for:

Relaxation

Alleviating pain

Improving circulation

Reducing swelling

Assistance with symptom management

Massage techniques involve kneading, stroking and manipulating the body's soft tissue to relieve muscle tension and stress, and promote relaxation. During a massage, a therapist manipulates your body's soft tissues — your muscles, skin and tendons — using his or her fingertips, hands and fists. Massage can be performed by several types of health care professionals, such as a massage therapist, physical therapist or occupational therapist. Several versions of massage exist, and they're performed in a variety of settings.

Studies have found that massage helps reduce feelings of pain and helps decrease anxiety. Because massage can reduce tension in the body, patients often feel better and may need less pain medication during recovery. Massage can be particularly beneficial to patients who have open heart surgery and the related back pain after surgery due to the rib cage being opened for access to the heart.

A massage may make you feel relaxed, but it isn't likely to cure everything that ails you. And, if performed incorrectly, it could hurt you. Learning about massage before you try one can help ensure that the experience is safe and enjoyable.

Massage can relieve tension in your muscles, and most people use it for relaxation, relief of stress and anxiety, or to reduce muscle soreness. Massage can also cause your body to release natural painkillers, and it boosts your immune system.

A regular massage may do more than just relax your body: It also appears to reduce pain and improve function in people suffering from osteoarthritis of the knee, a new study suggests.

The authors of the study, the first of its kind, are now embarking on larger studies to confirm the findings and see if massage is a viable alternative or adjunct to drugs and other existing treatments.

"This is a very happy outcome, but it's a pilot study in that the duration is short and the population is small," said senior author Dr. David Katz, associate adjunct professor of public health and director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. "We think that the primary role for massage therapy will be to reduce dependence on pharmacotherapy, rather than replace it outright, and to delay any functional decline rather than reverse the disease. So, the question then becomes, what is the bang for the buck?"

Katz and his colleagues are now researching the cost of massage, in the hopes of convincing insurance companies that it can take its place as a legitimate therapy for this disease.

Osteoarthritis is caused by a progressive degeneration of bone cartilage and is the most common type of arthritis in the United States. The condition affects some 21 million people and is associated with aging.

The medications used for osteoarthritis, however, are problematic. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as aspirin, can cause serious gastrointestinal side effects. The cox-2 inhibitors such as Vioxx that were developed to bypass those side effects are now known to cause cardiovascular problems, and some, including Vioxx, have been taken off the market.

"Primarily therapy is NSAIDs, but the target population is the very group that is least tolerant of those drugs," Katz said. "The cox-2s were developed as alternatives to NSAIDs to offer less toxicity, and look at how that turned out. We've kind of left folks high and dry."

While massage has been shown to relieve chronic lower back pain and musculoskeletal disorders, there has been no research on massage to help osteoarthritis sufferers. At least until now.

For this study, appearing in the Dec. 11 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, 68 adults with osteoarthritis of the knee were randomly assigned to receive either standard Swedish massage therapy or to a wait-list control group that started massage eight weeks after the first group. All participants were encouraged to continue with their previous treatments and medications.

Individuals in the massage group received a one-hour Swedish massage twice a week for four weeks, then once a week for the following four weeks.

After the first eight weeks, participants receiving massage had improved flexibility and range of motion and reduced pain.

Those in the control group showed no changes in symptoms until they, too, started receiving massage. Then, during weeks nine through 16, they experienced benefits similar to the first group.

Interestingly, the benefits did not go away even when the massages were stopped.

"The very significant therapeutic response over eight weeks of therapy persisted eight weeks later," Katz said. "Two months after the last massage, they were still significantly better than baseline and significantly better than the control group. That exceeded our expectations."

Massage may also enhance blood flow to the region affected by osteoarthritis. "Since the acute pain of osteoarthritis is related to inflammation, increased perfusion brings an influx of cells to clean out the debris and facilitates, to whatever extent possible, bone and cartilage remodeling," Katz explained.

More studies are needed before doctors, patients and insurance companies can be persuaded to accept this as common practice, he said.

"The end game would be that this would be something people with osteoarthritis would be able to access routinely," Katz said. "We ultimately want to change the standard of practice, but we don't do that with one study."

No matter what kind of massage you choose, you should feel calm and relaxed during and after your massage. When you go for a massage.Your massage therapist will want to know what you want from your massage. Are you looking for help with a pulled muscle? Massage therapists will also want to know about any medical conditions you may have, so they can decide if massage is safe for you or how to make it safer.

For many conditions and injuries, massage may be a means to help you feel more relaxed and less anxious and to reduce pain. It's one of several useful tools for managing your health, but it doesn't take the place of standard medical treatment and exercise.

Comments

Massage is highly recommened fro oseoarthritis in India and gives a lot of relief from the swelling and pain. Massage followed by a hot water fomentation. Coconut oil with camphor or mustard oil with garlic is effective.